The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1879.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 988, 19 June 1879, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1879.

The alteration mooted by Mr. Macandrew in the line leading out of Oatnaru to Dunedin will be a gigantic undertaking, so far as can at present be seen. The mo3t aeriotta work which the alteration will involve will be the tunnel through the hill. This will be about 50 chains in length, and will cost somewhere about 1.44,000. But there would, of course, be numerous important alterations attendant upon the proposed change of route, which would probably entail such an expenditure as would frighten our legislators into being satisfied with allowing matters to remain as they new. Those that the suggested change would benefit would not, therefore, be warranted in allowing their gratitude to the Minister fur Public Works to have full play until they happily see something more than a matt and a theodolite engaged in the work of transmogrification ; nor should those who would view the change as a disaster anathematise until unhappily that period ha 3 arrived. "Where is our temporary railway station that was to cost, with alteration to lines, nearly L.19,000, and to do duty for a few months until the hole in the hilt is an accomplished fact arid a permanent sfr-tti->ti. entailing the expenditure of a respectably round sum, ts erected I What a loose kind of morality is that of a Minister of the Statu, ar.it how confiding are the people. We never did suspect Ministers of being troubled with a superabundance of straightforwardness, and Mr. Macaudrew is a prince amongst them. There are few men that have been compelled to sav so much and have said it so nicely, and have succeeded in dunig so little. He has been the repository of conflicting arguments from conflicting interests, and these jumbled together produced the enunciation ot the nice httle scheme by which Oamaru was to tie provided with proper and ample railway appliances. These, or any portion of them, have not yet come—it we except the man and the theodolite—but they are promised, and that is something. It will readity be seen that a wily Minister is like a doctor who, making up for want of professional skill by tact, in a learned manner gives a patient sugar and water when in doubt or difficulty. Mr. 3lacarulrew has, so far, given Oamant sugar and water, and this he has done with much parade of knowledge of our requirements and admissions of our necessities. The hote in the hill would, perhaps, be a capital thing; but, be that a?; it may. the bare promise of it is Worth little as the promise of that railway station which tvas t<» make provision for our much increased and still increasing railway business. We wonder that Mr. Macandrew, whitst promising, did not assure his deputations, upon his honor, that not only would the hill be pierced, but that tfie major part of the Dunediu-Oamartt line woutd be torn up, and the crooked made straight and the rough places plain. Oantaruvians woutd have had utmost as much interest in the one as in the other, except that, perhaps, the location of a number of men in the vicinity of this town might mean local expenditure. Of what avail would it be? to improve this small section of a tine in which imperfections are prolific. If a train can be drawn over the difficult portions of the Waikouaiti-Dunedin section of the line, it can with case be drawn over that portion which it is proposed to abolish at so large an expenditure. We pay Mr. Macandrew the compliment of asserting our belief that he is too wise a mail to honestly believe in the wisdom of making the alteration lie proposes in nianner which he has suggested, but we do ourselves the justice of explaining that we place much less value upon Mr. Macaiuirew's sincerity than we do upon his good sense. As we have previously said, Parliament will not agree to so large an expenditure iit altering a line. The energies and capital of the Colony will now be devoted to the construction of fresh lines. If alt the defective portions of our railway tines were rJtered, the proposed loan would be swallowed up, and we should be little better oil" than wc arc now, with heavier taxation and a craving for another loan. Why does not Mr. Macandrew cease for a while to indulge his talent for subterfuge and give us the works that we aro honestly entitled to, instead of promises quixotic in the extreme.